


Water of the Womb

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Canon Related, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 17:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16372106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: Hakkai reflects on the return of Gojyo's brother





	Water of the Womb

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Chomiji over on DW for the prompt!

“You seemed to know him.”

It had been more than twenty-four hours since their encounter with Kougaiji’s group, and the subsequent conjoined battle against what Goku had come to call “the seafood from hell,” so Gojyo could perhaps have been forgiven for not knowing, immediately, what Hakkai was talking about.

“Whozaat?” he drawled, sliding his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other as his hands worked beneath the dishwater.

“Kougaiji’s man,” Hakkai clarified. “Dokugakuji.”

Gojyo’s hands hesitated beneath the murky surface of the dishwater. “He’s…” the cigarette rolled again, ashes dropped into the water like dark snow. The fall of his hair hid much of his expression, which Hakkai found suddenly irritating. “He’s my brother.”

_Brother._ Hakkai paused in his careful drying of Goku’s bowl. Gojyo had similarly paused in his washing work. Only the nearby stream carried on, bubbling like a worried murmur of voices. Surely, Gojyo had only _one_ brother.

“Yeah, I only got the one,” Gojyo said, though Hakkai knew he hadn’t spoken his thought aloud, it was hardly the first time Gojyo had seemed to read his mind. “Son of a bitch, I didn’t even know he was alive.”

Relief: that was the only emotion Hakkai could read in Gojyo’s words. Hakkai’s own emotions were more circumspect. There was some measure of happiness on Gojyo’s behalf, that he had been relieved of the lingering pain of an old loss; but there was anger too. If Gojyo’s brother had been alive all this time, why had he left Gojyo to face the world alone; why had he never…

Gojyo’s elbow knocked against Hakkai’s ribs, not enough to hurt, but enough to startle Hakkai from his thoughts. “You’re falling behind, man. I’m almost done here.”

There were few things remaining beneath faintly soap surface of the dishwater. Gojyo had stacked already washed items in the grass next to Hakkai’s knee. He held the final bowl in one hand, gently wiping its already spotlessly clean surface.

“Ya know,” he said, slowly. “It’s good just to know. If nothing else.”

Hakkai retrieved a spoon from the grass, catching his distorted reflection in the curved back. Pain was such a strange thing, its absence such pure relief that you forgot everything that came before. 

What Hakkai would not have given for the same.


End file.
